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The slaves clatter and clang their way through dinner preparations.

Tris paces near the lit hearth, barking orders left and right.

She doesn’t notice him.

She doesn’t see him.

Daxeel lets the shadows embrace him, hug around his chest, curve over his shoulders, cage him completely—until he is one with the darkness.

The caress, the envelope of these shadows, it feels as natural as his leathers do on his skin, as easy as breathing like he’s gone his life without an arm, now has it back to where it belongs on his body.

The shadows belong to him as he belongs to them.

To win the Sacrament, then hand over the reign to the iilra, it’s a dawning horror, to give away a piece of himself. To give an arm.

He forces the troubled thoughts out of mind before his shadows shudder with his own distress.

Silent, he moves for the plated dishes on the bench. He steals one into his shadow fold—then slips out of the kitchens, unnoticed.

He makes it to the top floor without running into anyone, a feat since Hemlock is teeming with folk. It’s his preferred home for that reason.

Their home in the Shadow Court feels hollow when he leaves the Midlands, the larger rooms echo too much, the longer corridors are too cold, the stone towers too tall. And it is the home of his father.

Daxeel is in no rush to join his father’s unit for the invasion. But to accept General Caspan’s offer would be to shame his father, thus shame his house, and therefore himself.

The one value his father instilled in him—

Honour above all else.

Shame is a rot on self and house.

Yet Daxeel finds himself taking pity on the most dishonourable fae he’s ever known. He takes the plated meal to the door that whirls with shades of blue, and so he knows she has found sleep in the sweaty bed he can smell from out in the hall.

Still, he lowers the plate to the floor and places it on the edge of the emerald-green runner rug. As he rises, he lets himself focus on the bedchamber for a beat—listens for any sign that she stirs from her slumber.

But Nari sleeps through the phases leading up to the second passage. She sleeps through her fears that she can’t bring herself to face.

Nari…

His hand lifts.

Nari…

A shadow unravels from his shoulder and curls through the air. It licks at the door.

Nari…

Fingers curled into a fist, he moves forward, leaning his weight onto one boot—then he stills.

Nari…

He frowns at his balled, inked hand, as though it has a mind of its own and he just regains control of it before it can knock on the cobalt hues of the door.

He drops his hand to his side and takes a step back.

His boot flattens silently on the rug.

This phase, he will let her rot away in that bed once more—but just this phase.